Ouya Is a $100 Android Game Console That Encourages Hacking

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Where did this come from? A new game console that's not built by Nintendo, Sony or Microsoft? You read that right. A new game console is entering the ring. Meet the Ouya.

What exactly is Ouya? Scooped up by The Verge, Ouya is a console that connects to a TV and comes with a dev kit that is "built to be hacked."

"Any developer will be able to publish games, claims the listing, and all games will be free to play."

Lending merit to the Ouya is the fact that the console is being drawn up by Jawbone Jambox and One Laptop Per Child designer Yves Behar.

The Verge also says "Ed Fries of Xbox fame, Amol Sarva of Peek, Peter Pham of Color, and counts Julie Uhrman of IGN as its founder and CEO. There's also a gentleman named Muffi Ghadiali, who appears to be leaving Amazon's Lab126 where he helped ship Kindle."

Sources close to the project tell me there are even more surprises to what is an altogether out-of-left field new entrant into the home video game console wars.

I'll have more on this very unusual project in the coming days.

What's happening? Is the Ouya a console that'll upend console gaming as we know it? There's no denying that the idea of a $100 console would be very attractive, considering how fast the market for apps and mobile games have grown in the last few years.

Even today, we're seeing more "mobile" games that are starting to feel more and more like console games. Good examples include Shadowgun (a Gears of War clone) and Modern Combat 3 (a Call of Duty clone).

Could the Ouya make Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo's next consoles look like expensive dinosaurs?

Based on the screenshot from The Verge showing off the console's UI, we can see that there are buttons for A/B/X/Y, so at the very least, the Ouya should come with an actual game controller. Then again, being an Android-based console, it could also use smartphones and tablets as forms of input.

And just like that, the game console race just became a whole lot more interesting.